


Good Friday

by kats_meow



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Angel the Series Season 5, F/M, Gen, Wolfram & Hart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-20
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2019-11-25 22:46:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18172442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kats_meow/pseuds/kats_meow
Summary: Set in Angel Season 5, post The Girl in Question:Wesley thinks he's found a way to bring his beloved Fred back to life. But with Illyria now controlling her body, will Fred have a chance at survival, even with Spike's help?Completed 2005Absence of Light Awards: Best Het AngstBig Bad Awards Round 1: Bloody Hell Award - Best Spike VoiceFade to Black Awards Round 4: Bleeding Soul Award, Runner-Up





	1. Ashes of Wednesday

 

_The thunder came from beneath him, under his feet and through his body, and climbed up the pillars until the whole edifice trembled around him. He looked at his useless hands folded, couldn’t help but think of the old nursery rhyme…_

_Here is the church_  
_And here is the steeple_  
_Open the doors_  
_And see all the people_

_Crack the floors and shatter the walls; the roof caves in and kills us all._

_“Pray with us!” the priest begged over the din. Instead, Wesley pulled out another sort of bible and shouted out its twisted prayers, bringing forth a woman’s shrill scream. He focused on the words, continued to yell his Latin until his voice turned hoarse, but could not bear to look at the figure before him. A mere sinner in the hands of his angry god, too late for him to repent now because the end was not near._

_It was here._

 

“I’m just so glad to see ya’ll!” Fred said, hugging her parents goodbye at the elevator bay of Wolfram & Hart. “You should come visit more often.”

“Honey, we’re just so glad to see you doing so well!” Mrs. Burkle beamed. “Especially with your new friend.” She glanced meaningfully in Wesley’s direction.

“Mom, please!” Fred chided, rolling her eyes and blushing on cue. “Wesley’s an old friend, you know that.”

“Well, I think it’s wonderful that you kids got together after so long,” Mr. Burkle said, patting Wes on the back. “Friendship’s a good start.” Wesley smiled for the parents, playing his role of the adoring beau.

“You sure you two can’t get away?” asked Mrs. Burkle, eyeing Fred. “You haven’t seen the ranch in a dog’s age. Don’t you want to come on home for Easter?”

The grin slipped from Fred’s face and she looked blankly at Wesley. “Uh, Easter?”

Wes stepped forward and tucked Fred under the protective shield of his arm. “We appreciate the invitation, but we simply can’t abandon our projects at the moment.”

Fred’s face still hadn’t recovered from its stunned blankness and confusion. Mr. Burkle smiled uneasily. “You’re celebrating Easter this year, aren’t you?”

Wesley pulled Fred tighter. “We’ll attend church services, of course. Then I plan on treating Fred to my favorite Easter dinner, roast pork with rosemary and new potatoes. My mother’s recipe.” He looked at Fred meaningfully. “You know how the stove isn’t always your friend, darling?”

Recognition flooded Fred’s face and the carefree grin returned. “Isn’t that the truth? Bunsen burners are no problem, but you can’t bake cookies on ‘em!”

The Burkles laughed and exchanged glances of what looked like relief. “Oh, honey! He’s a keeper!” her mother sang. “Hold on to a man who cooks!” The four of them laughed together again until the elevator doors opened.

“These visits are always over too soon!” Mrs. Burkle said sadly. She and her husband again took turns hugging the young couple promising more visits, letters, phone calls, and emails. The elevator doors closed on the happy scene of Fred and Wesley, arm in arm, waving good-bye.

Wesley dropped his arm from her shoulder. “I hope you achieved what you wanted from that exchange,” he said coldly.

“Yes,” the inhuman voice replied. “I found it illuminating.”

“Good. Fix it in your mind, or whatever you have. It will never happen again.” He turned and walked towards the doors of his office.

“My appearance as the shell,” the voice continued behind him. “Do you wish it to remain?”

“For the last time, she’s not a shell!” Wesley snapped. “Do what you want. You will at any rate,” he muttered. “I don’t much care.”

“We will resume instruction tomorrow,” the voice stated. It left little room for argument.

He paused at the doorway. “For what? You succeeded in your ruse. You fooled them – her own parents. What more instruction do you need?”

“The Easter of which they spoke. I do not understand this word. There remains much for me to learn.”

“Find another teacher, Illyria,” Wesley answered. “I’m finished.” He closed the door behind him to shut out the blind stare that bore through the back of his skull. He staggered to his desk, cradled his face in his hands, and wept.

~ * ~

“Vampire,” Illyria called into the hallway and fell into step behind Spike’s saunter. “You will teach me. You will challenge me with the sword and contest my strength.”

“Bugger that,” Spike said, continuing down the hall. “Last time I ‘taught’ you I nearly got my head cracked open.”

“This action would not have killed you,” Illyria noted.

“Yeah, well, my skull says otherwise.” He gave her a backward glance. “Go hound Wesley. He’s your welcome wagon to the world, isn’t he?”

“He does not desire my presence,” Illyria said with a hint of Fred’s soft drawl. “I have offended him in some way. I know not how.”

He stopped to stare at her. “How?  Well, it’s how you conjure up Fred, of course. You don’t need more training for that Highness. It may be the most devastating thing about you.”

~ * ~

Easter. However could Wesley explain the religious significance of such an event to a being such as Illyria? Although, he considered, the ancient one would probably understand the memorial celebration of a savior’s resurrection. Angel’s words to him that morning rang ever true: You're not her savior. Illyria must have seen itself a savior to its own worshippers – if only they hadn’t died waiting for the triumphant return. Illyria’s homecoming to its’ temple had been like the bad punch line of a worse joke: what if you threw an Easter, he mused, and no one showed up?

Of course -- Fred had been raised Christian. She believed in Easter. She believed in God.

Wesley suddenly knew exactly how he could bring her back. To his surprise, he realized that there would be no magic involved at all really. Well, not of the conventional sort. He thought of Angel’s words to him that morning: “Fred's dead, Wes. You're still alive. Start acting like it.”

Indeed.

He hit the speakerphone and dialed his research team. “I need a religious type with flexible ethics,” he told the nameless underling on the other end. “Give me something to bargain with. Make it worth his while.”

The source of this unconventional magic arrived in the lobby of Wolfram & Hart, his presence jarring more with the surroundings than Lorne’s minty pallor and Spike’s duster put together.

Fingering his clerical collar nervously and glancing back at the door, the young priest looked touchingly overwhelmed and guilty as though he’d considered planning an escape. Wesley realized the man seemed most uncomfortable with himself – take one bleached out brunette of a surfer dude and shove him into vestments. The salty friar of the waves, Wes thought, had he received his calling after a particularly bad wipeout? Or had the insinuations about the priest’s shady dealings with altar boys hit a little too close to shore?

“I know you said you guys were the white knights and all, but you’re fighting against quite a uh, historical reputation here,” Fr. Richards said upon Wesley’s greeting.

“As are you, in your alliance, Father.”

“Despite your best intentions,” the minister continued. “You can’t expect to fight inside the bowels of the beast without getting somehow…stained.”

“How nicely you put it, too.” Wesley responded. “Let’s convene further in my office, shall we?” He escorted the priest to the elevators.

“Well now. The church’s legal problems,” Wesley began, after shutting the office door. “Those hits just keep on coming, don’t they Father?”

“So I saddle on whatever cause you pull out and you’ll be obliged to make all those nasty court cases go away, I take it?”  
“I take it you’ll cooperate?”

The priest’s eye twitched, the only physical sign of his acquiescence. “You want what from me, exactly?”

“Help. Father. I have a problem.”

At that moment, Illyria entered Wesley’s office, yanking open the door and stalking stiffly over to his side.

“I seek you,” the old one said. “Yet you ignore your duty to me. What is this?” It asked, indicating Wesley’s guest with a glaringly blank gaze.

“This is my counselor,” Wesley told her. “My own Qwa'ha Xahn if you will.” He flashed an ingratiating smirk.

Illyria turned back to Wes and cocked Fred’s beloved head at him. “I do not follow your meaning. If I will what?”

Wesley sighed. “Merely a figure of speech. I am not ignoring you, Illyria, but I must take this counsel now.”

Illyria cautiously circled the chair of the surprised priest and studied him with all the posture of a preying panther.

“You will gather your counsel,” it replied. “Then you will return to me.” Backing out of the room then, the gleaming blue eyes darting back and forth suspiciously between the two men, Illyria pulled the door shut.

“What the hell?” the priest finally sputtered.

“That’s the little problem I’m hoping you can help me solve,” Wesley murmured and ran a shaking hand through his hair.

“I’m a priest, not an exterminator!” the man spat. “What the hell is that thing?”  
Wes took a breath and sat down at his desk again. “That…is my girlfriend. Well, was,” he corrected himself tiredly. “Is,” he added, staring sadly at the closed door. “I need a standard exorcism case from you, Father.”

“Standard, right. So this girl…”

“Winifred. Fred.”

“You’re saying she’s possessed?”

Wesley couldn’t meet the priest’s eyes. “Yes. The being calls itself Illyria, an ancient power. It told us that Fred’s soul -- everything about her really -- was destroyed when Illyria took over the body.”

The priest’s shock downshifted into smugness. “Mr. Pryce, lemme say this. Souls don’t get destroyed. They get doomed and they get saved. I talk to the one who does the saving every day – and it’s not Illyria, I can tell you that.”

Wesley bit his lip, the scholar in him struggling to keep silent. Illyria was beyond God, beyond time even. Yet he needed some kind of faith, some kind of magic beyond his own to reach Fred.

“Illyria’s indicated that when she – it – took over, that Fred expired. Fred… was in excruciating pain. She died in my arms, Father.” Wesley paused to let the image sink in. “Illyria says that she -- dammit--I mean it…is now bound to Fred’s body.”

The priest shrugged. “I’m sure that’s how it feels to Illyria, but it simply isn’t possible. Part of your girlfriend may certainly have died that day, but her spirit can’t. It may be shoved aside in there, put on the backburner to make room for well, let’s face it, a huge suckass power. Illyria is an essence, a spirit, that can’t be destroyed any more than the girl can. It can be forced out with the right tools.”

Wesley leaned across the desk eagerly. “You’ll take the case? You’ll perform the exorcism?”

The priest shifted in his seat. “We don’t get a lot of call for exorcisms anymore, Mr. Pryce, and never for a mega one like this. So this is all a hypothetical – of the mystic variety.”

“My favorite kind,” Wes sighed.

“The way I see it, this Illyria would have no soul. I can only guess, but whatever’s left of the girl, she’d be nothing but soul at this point. Probably a damaged one given what she’s shacking up with in there, it’ll be hard to pull them apart, maybe damn near impossible.”

Wesley inhaled sharply. “If you refuse me, I have the power to destroy you; your parish…would you like me to go further?”

“Hey, ho,” the man stammered, holding his hands up in defense. “I haven’t refused you jack. You gotta know the score. There’s another way to go.” He bowed his head. “You could free her soul. Give her peace. Whatever’s left, she’s a shell of her former self.”

“She’s not a shell!” Wes cried. “She’s in there. I’m sure of it.”

“Mr. Pryce, have you read the Bible?”

“Yes,” Wesley answered with surprise. “Strictly in the academic sense, of course.”  
“‘Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither does corruption inherit incorruption’” that’s 1 Corinthians by the way.”

“Meaning what exactly?”

The priest leaned in earnestly. “Man, let her go. I’ll do whatever you want, no questions. I hope you know that you could be damning her to some gnarly unlife if you don’t. If you truly love this girl, you will let her go.”

“I can’t.”

“Then she pays for your weakness?”

“‘For when I am weak, then I am strong.’ 2 Corinthians, Father,” Wesley replied.

The priest looked furious. “St. Paul meant strong in the love for his God!”

“As do I,” Wesley said softly. “She is mine.”

Fr. Richards stood up slowly, his posture defeated and passive. “If we’re gonna do this thing, I gotta find some backup and a church. We should do it soon.” He thought for a minute. “The chick is Christian, right?”

“Fred? Yes, of course.”

The priest nodded. “We should do it Friday. The day the old church used to set aside for gigs just like this one.”

“Good Friday?” Wes asked.

“You got it.”

“If Fred comes back,” Wes whispered. “It will be indeed.”

 


	2. The Darkest Day

Wesley wondered all the way to his destination how a priest, never mind one so green as Fr. Richards, could secure a church from its diocese on one of the highest holy days of the year. A sign at the front door answered his questions. “Emergency Extermination. Closed Easter Weekend. Visit St. Mark’s for services: 555-1111.”

Wes couldn't help but give a wry smile.  Perhaps there was hope for young Fr. Steve yet.

He entered the silent church and nearly choked on the cloud of incense smoldering by the bare altar.  Three older priests made ready their vestments, their beads and books, barely acknowledging his presence.  At the foot of the altar sat another monument, covered in the purple cloak of the Easter season.  

“You see we had no trouble with the delivery,” said Fr. Steve behind him.

“You were able to remove the crystals from the sarcophagus?” Wesley asked.

“Each of the monsignors holds one.  Exactly as we discussed.”

Wesley glanced around the church. “I don’t know how much power they’ll have, once we begin.  Illyria is inhumanly strong…”

“It doesn’t matter,” the priest replied shortly.  “Once Illyria sees we have its coffin and hold the crystals, it will know we mean to contain it again.  Permanently.”

Wesley eyed him suspiciously.  “You believe this to be a good thing?”

“Illyria will try everything in its power to fight us, as we sap its strength from its very core.  I’m expecting a quick, hard burn out of the demon before it burns out altogether.”

“And Fred?”

“Will then have the strength to return. One thing though,” the priest grabbed his arm. “You must let us see this through to the bitter end regardless of what you think might be happening.  We need your prayer and your faith, Mr. Pryce.  Nothing more.”

Wesley pulled out of his grip. “You’ll tell me where to stand.”  

The priests made a semi-circle around the sarcophagus and began their low prayers in Latin.  Wesley stood behind them, his leather sack at the ready, and silently translated their words to be supplications for strength, praise and adoration to the one creator, and beseeching the deity to return Fred’s soul to her invaded body.

The church’s front door slammed them all to attention.

“I am here as you requested.”  Illyria’s voice echoed in the dim candlelight.  “Let the instruction begin.  What you call Easter…”

“Is a most sacred religious holiday,” Wesley called.  “One in which the leaders of the church gather a congregation together to celebrate the suffering, death, and triumphant resurrection of their savior.”

“A warrior?”

“A peacemaker.”

Illyria walked slowly up the aisle.  “I share nothing in common with a peacemaker.”

“Actually, you share one thing - and she would like it back.  Now!” he yelled and the priests whipped the cloth off the sarcophagus and held the crystals up high.  Illyria cringed backwards and then looked up.  It threw out a defiant laugh.

“In nominae patri...”

“Fools!  You cannot presume to contain me!”

“Et fili...”

“Your power is weak and fallible, born out of the insignificance that is man.”

“Et spiritus sancti, Amen.” 

“Prepare to die.”  

Illyria threw itself forward and halted suddenly, as though hitting a wall.  Struggling, unable to move arms or legs, the eyes so unlike Fred’s sought Wesley.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m about to celebrate Easter with the woman I love.”

“Your Fred is gone, dead, her soul extinguished. I own this shell now.”

“Excuse me if I don’t believe you, Illyria.  That explanation has never been satisfactory.”  

The chanting of the priests grew louder as they brought the crystals higher over their heads.  The sarcophagus began to shake as though something inside struggled to break free.

“You exploit magics you cannot begin to comprehend,” Illyria warned them.  “Futile to attempt, they will only result in your agony and death.”

“Really?”  Wesley smiled.  “Then why can’t you move?”

“Shut up!”  Fr. Steve hissed.  “Stop talking to it!  Ignore it!  You’ve given it too much power over you already.”  

Wesley tried to tear his eyes away from Illyria but he simply could not.  The change had begun.  The cranberry red blouse and matching skirt of Fred’s that Illyria wore under her armor could not disguise the bulging blue veins that Illyria had branded into the body.   They pulsed now, fading under the skin and throbbing back to the surface in a steady heartbeat rhythm.  Illyria’s mask of Fred began to appear and regress, following the same pulsing beat:  first brown eyes and pink skin, then blue eyes and blue tinged flesh.   The whole body seemed blurry to him, like a fast-moving object caught on film.  Or maybe he could not see through his tears.

“Mr. Pryce!  Fr. Steve pulled desperately at Wesley’s arm.  You’re begging it to invade you!  It’s gaining strength, we can’t… I don’t know if we can confine it…”

Illyria fell to its knees and flailed against the invisible binds. “Stop!”

The shaking of the sarcophagus ended for one agonized moment, then exploded into fragments of stone and dust.  The five men, thrown from the blast, crawled back to their places on hands and knees and the priests weakly began their prayers again. Beneath them, the floor began to tremble.

Illyria focused on Wesley. “Now confront the full breadth of my ire.”

“Pray with us!”  Fr. Steve begged Wesley from his slumped position on the floor.  “It’ll kill us all!”

“Not today,” Wesley answered and pulled a different kind of prayer book from his sack.

“Return to me,” he whispered, uttering scraps of the oldest and darkest spells he’d ever learned.  

Illyria fell back as if struck, its face a horrid amalgamation of monster not human and not demon.  Grasping the back of its head, Wesley yanked the hair back towards the floor, forcing Illyria’s mouth into an O of pained surprise.

“Open wide for Daddy,” Wesley crooned.  “"Illyria, you are bound...Tu Illyrico vinctum...Illyria, I bind you from the front...Adiuro vos contra Illyrios...Illyria, I bind you from the side...Adiuro vos ex parte Illyrici...Illyria, I bind you by the power of the sun...Adiuro vos per virtutem solis Illyricum...Illyria, I bind you by the power of the moon...Adiuro vos per virtutem lunae Illyricum...as above, so below...sicut superius et inferius...I mote it so...et sic fiat!”

The body in his arms choked and thrashed, a shaking hand shot out and wrapped itself around his throat.   Stars in black haze began to crowd his vision as he began to lose oxygen.

“Incarnate!  Hear me, forces of the earth, return the essence to the body that owns it…”  Blood, from a gash cut into his forehead by the explosion, dripped across Fred’s face and into the open mouth.

“Perfect timing,” he muttered.  “Seal this in my blood.”

The hand went slack.

The priests went silent.

Fred’s body vibrated out of his lap and across the floor. This time he forced himself to look away, so much did it remind him of the moment when he knew that he had lost her, when her body ceased to be her own. He looked helplessly behind him.   The other priests were dazed, practically unconscious.  Fr. Steve stood in rapt wonder.

“Black magic in a house of God?  You’re cracker jacks, man. You’ve killed her – worse, you’ve damned her, yourself, all of us here.”

“Uhhh,” a soft voice moaned and Wesley slid across the marble floor.

He turned the body over.  Dark brown hair with streaks of blue, a blue crust on the forehead, the dead gray lips.  A weak, rapid pulse wavered along the jawbone.   _Your eyes_ , he thought.   _Open your eyes_. They flicked open and focused on him and he nearly wept.

“My Fred, you’re back my sweet Fred.”

“Wesley?  Where am I?”

“You’re here with me, my love, where you belong.”

Fred began to convulse.  “Tell my parents I was brave.  OH, God!  It burns!  It’s burning me from the inside!  Why did we think we could fight it?  God, no!  What did I do?  I swear I didn’t mean it, just stop, please stop!”

“Fred?  NO, no, no Fred.  You’re not dying! You’re, you’re coming back to life with me, Fred.  Come back to me!”

A scream of confused agony ripped through the dried film on her lips.

“I may be calling on you again, Father,” he murmured, watching the girl writhe under his hands.  
  
“What in God’s name for?”

“For the ceremony,” he said dreamily. “That’s the girl I’m going to marry.”

  
Wesley didn’t know when the priests finally left. They’d simply slipped out a back door in stunned silence, leaving him and the heaving body on the floor. He looked at the broken fragments of stone, the dust circling the air, the chunks of wood scattered across the floor from a shattered pew.

“What a horrible mess,” he noted.

Fred whimpered in his lap. He rocked her gently in his arms.

“I’m here, Fred. I’m here. Never going to leave you, never ever again.”

“Get away from me.”

The voice chilled him to his core. “No. God, please, no. Illyria?”

She pushed him away and wrapped herself up in a crouched position on the floor, panting.

“I’m back,” she hummed to herself. “I’m back, I’m back, I’m back.” Her head flew up to the ceiling. “I’m here!” she yelled.

Her eyes darted to Wesley, full of disappointment and horror. “Oh, Wesley my love. Whatever have you done?”

“Fred, is it really you?”

“You sure want it to be, dontcha?” she winked.

He felt ill. More of Illyria’s tricks. Nothing had worked. All he had done succeeded only in this mockery.

“Stop Illyria. Just stop,” he begged. “Kill me, do whatever you like to me. I can’t bear this any longer.”

“Can I suck out your insides and walk you around like an ole skin puppet?” Fred’s voice continued. “Can I make you dead? Will you help me do it? ‘Cause you’re a big help, big, big, big help…”

Crawling over to one of the pews, she bent over and tried to stand. She slumped over, gagging and began to retch. He rushed over to her side.

“NO!” she cried. “You don’t get to touch me. Wesley, how could you?”

“I… brought you back,” he said helplessly.

“After you helped it! You helped it set up shop in me and walk around in me and talk like me! You watched it lie to my parents, Wesley! Deep down, I was still in here. I was trapped in here and you didn’t even see me!”

“Oh my Fred, all I saw was you! Why do you think I couldn’t turn Illyria away?”

“No,” she shuddered. “You never saw me. Even before that…thing crawled into me. Who am I to you Wesley? Who was I ever to you? Why did you ever even want me?”

“Fred, I have so many reasons for wanting you, for loving you. You’re the only good here, Fred. The only good in me.”

She held out her hands and stared widely at her open palms in growing revulsion mirroring, Wesley thought, the same sick curiosity Illyria had shown in studying the mold of Fred.

He tried once more. “I’d have done anything to have you back, anything.”

“I can see that.”

She shoved past him then with none of Fred’s girlish grace, but with a force born from the forging of the earth itself. He heard his shoulder blade crack against plaster when she sent him slamming back into one of the church’s stone pillars. The pain would come later, he knew.


	3. All Fall Down

Part 3: All Fall Down

Spike headed down into the garage of Wolfram & Hart and stopped at the last step. He sniffed the air. He wasn’t alone.

“Hello. Who’s there?”

He approached the Viper and recognized the blue shine of hair reflected through the glass. “Oh. You again. Look. Go find another punching bag. Bell’s rung and I’m out.”

He heard her make a noise, like a sigh or a hiccup. Impossibly human, but he wouldn’t be fooled.

“Go on now. Leave.” He opened the car door and stepped away to light his cigarette. If anything, the damn thing would get out while his back was turned. He just couldn’t look at Illyria’s ruse again.

“Spike? Please?”

Hearing Fred’s voice, he whirled around ready to beat that sound out of that body no matter what the consequences. Then he recognized the smell…

He stopped.

He scrutinized the figure curled into the corner of the car seat. No inhuman eyes stared up at him, only two quivering brown ones, wild and full of fear. Her knees drawn up to her chest, her shaking arms wrapped around her legs, looking for all the world like she was trying to hold herself together. Faint streaks of blue stained her hairline, the webs of her fingers, and several strands of her hair. Her lips were cracked and pale, yet with the first flush of pink. Again, he inhaled the air around her cautiously and if his heart could beat, it would’ve stopped at that moment. This was no imitation.

This was Fred.

“Bloody hell,” he whispered. He walked closer to the car and peered inside the open window.

“Fred? My God. It really is you. Wherever did you come from, love?”

“I-I don’t know.”

“We thought you were gone.”

“I’m still here,” came the whisper then, small, wretched, and determined - much like the girl herself.

_I’m still here._

Only three words but they spoke volumes of pain, buckets of tears, spoken in tones raw and forlorn. She had lived an eternity trapped inside the prison of her body. He remembered yelling the same words to her not too long ago (did she remember?) and recognized his own wound in her lost expression, the exhausted trial of a soul begging to be heard. Even her voice sounded torn-up and hoarse. Had she been screaming all that time right from inside her own body?

He found himself reaching out to her, wanting to feel the sweet face and the sweet self be one again. His hand lost its nerve and fell back, curling his fingers on the rim of the window. He felt his tongue turn dry in his open mouth and realized he was gawking at her.

“H-how?” he croaked.

Her lip trembled. “Wesley’s done something awful.”

Something about her ominous tone made him think that she’d uttered the hugest of understatements.

“No.” He tried a smile. “Can’t be that bad if you’re back with us?”

“It is,” she gulped. “It’s unholy and perverse and wrong, just wrong all over the place. He should’ve killed me. It would’ve been kinder to kill me.”

“No,” he hushed her again but he didn’t quite believe it. Even in the shadows, he could see her trembling.

“Hey there.” He tested his stiff-upper-lip voice that he’d trained on bucking up slayers and their clan. “Come on now. No need to hide out here. Let’s get you upstairs.”

She shook her head and sunk into the seat. “I don’t want anything to do with Wolfram & Hart. Please don’t tell Wesley where I am. Don’t tell any of them. I don’t think I could quite face it,” her voice wavered.

“You can’t stay here. You need…” He paused. Looking at her made him feel completely helpless. “I don’t even know where to start on what you need.”

“Will you…can I go with you? Please?”

That ‘please’ again, tortured and anguished and alone, plucked out what little resolve remained in him.

“Yeah, what the hell,” he relented. “Though once you see the place, you may wish you picked the back seat of the Benz.”

  
“Fred?” He asked finally, after riding in silence for several minutes. She jumped at the sound of his voice.

“Sorry, pet. I just… we should’ve waited for Angel. This is his car you were hiding in.”

“But you always take it.”

He grinned wryly. “That I do. So it is me you meant to find then?”

She nodded in her seat, her arms still wrapped around herself. He’d managed to get the seatbelt around her just barely like this.

“See, I’m trying to suss out why, Fred,” he said gently. “I’m not… we don’t…of all the lot, you know me least well.”

“Maybe that’s why. They’ll all look at me, wanting me to talk. They’d all want to do something about it. I knew you wouldn’t.”

“Not quite sure how to take that, love.” He aimed his voice towards joking. “You calling me slack?”

She didn’t laugh. She hunched over on her side, pressing her forehead against the glass of the window. “I knew you’d keep me safe. You will, won’t you Spike?”

“‘Course I will. For as long as you need.” He waited a beat. “You should eat something. We’ve got the golden arches and every neon color in between. Take your pick.”

She turned from the window suddenly to face him. “You hit Illyria. Hard.”

Spike met her eyes. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“No. I’m glad you did it. I was glad every time you did it.”

“Every time?” A horrible realization began to dawn on him. “How do you know that?”

She laughed nervously, a harsh and bitter sound. “Didn’t make any sense, you know? Especially to me. Gotta make some sense, somehow.”

“What?”

She shook her head once, like a reflex tick. “I kept waiting to go, ‘cause that’s what’s supposed to happen if you believe in heaven. Or hell. I knew I died, sort of. That part hurt a lot.” Her face puckered as if she might cry, and then the emotion passed over quickly. “I stopped hurting, stopped feeling anything. Every minute, I thought, wow, so I’m gonna fly out of here. But I never did, Spike. I just stayed in there all shoved up behind…and I couldn’t move, Spike. I could hear and I could see and I yelled, but you couldn’t hear me, nobody could ever hear me.”

His stomach turned with dread. “Oh, Fred.”

She gave a quick swipe to her eyes and let out a shaking breath. “Are we there yet?”

A car horn blared suddenly and he pulled his eyes away from her along with the car back into the lane. He refocused on the road and gripped the steering wheel tighter, checked the rearview mirrors, and concentrated on anything but her, anything except how they left her abandoned.

My boys, she had called them. He felt sick with shame.

“Only a bit farther,” he answered, trying to keep his voice light. “Not the best of places, but I can’t complain. Got it picked out for me. Well, you knew that. It’s quiet. Neighbors no bother. There’s an all night Korean, round the corner. Not much liquor, but a fair amount of noodles…” He heard a soft sound and turned to see Fred snoring.

At the next stoplight he reached over and brushed his fingers against her cheek. “Sweet dreams then. Welcome home, Fred.”

  
She was still sleeping when he reached the apartment. He knew that he couldn’t leave her in the car, but it bothered him to rouse her from so sound and untroubled a sleep. Actually, scratch the untroubled part. A worry crease set between her eyebrows and he wondered what it would feel like to kiss it smooth. He yanked out of that thought and walked away from the car to clear his head. Put so many times on this path, guiding a girl down this journey so unclear, that must be the attraction. This is Fred, he reminded himself. Wesley’s Fred – well, maybe not now. Not his, nothing ever belonged to Spike. So when he opened the door to shake her, he did it more roughly than he needed to and she awoke with a startled gasp.

“Where am I?”

“My place. It’s me, Fred. It’s Spike.”

She grabbed on to his coat in a panic. “What’d you call me? Not here. Not ever here.”

“You’re back, remember?”

Her frightened eyes filled with tears and she broke into a pained smile. “You can see me?” She threw her arms around his neck. “Oh, thank you. Thank you for seeing me.”

He hugged her back, quickly. “Yeah, come on, love.”

She pulled away from him and looked down at her body. She flexed her fingers in front of her face a few times, then rubbed her forearm so vigorously he saw a cloud of dead skin flake off.

“I can feel, I can feel, I can feel,” she chanted. “Can you feel me, Spike? Am I cold?”

He pressed his hand to her forearm to test her heat and squeezed reassuringly. “Lukewarm.”

“Huh,” she choked. He wondered if she remembered their first exchange in the lab, how she’d given him the same diagnosis. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

“I want to go home.”

“Oh, yeah. ‘Course you do. Wes kept your apartment up. I can get us in.”

“No. Home.”

“Uh, right. Your parents were just here. We – we can call them, jet you on to Texas. Can get you there in a half hour – less if you don’t fancy the mid-flight snack.”

“Home,” she sobbed.

He patted her hair. It felt stiff and straw-like under his hand. “Fred, love, you gotta talk to me. I don’t know where that is you’re talking about.”

“Neither do I,” she smiled faintly.

Leaning forward, she pulled down the car’s visor and adjusted the mirror on herself, shrinking at the image but inspecting herself all the same.

“Boy, I look… rough. Cordy would say something like, ‘sure wasn’t the god of hair conditioners and beauty makeovers that got inside of you.’ Poor Cordelia,” she whispered. “I guess I got off easy. How bad does it look, Spike?”

At the sign of his hesitation, her eyes grew wide and frightened. “Do I look dead?”

“No!”

She flipped the mirror back and looked down. “I do look different, don’t I?”

The blue stains aside, she did; exactly how he couldn’t say. There was no use in denying it. He turned her chin gently into the faint shine of the car’s courtesy light. “You look sad. Scared. I never saw those things in you.”

“Pfft,” she waved her hand dismissively. “Stick around. They always show up.”

“You look stronger, too, somehow. I know that’s a part of you, something I have seen.”

Fred gave him a look full of gratitude. “You believe these things. You’re telling me the truth. Thank you for that.”

“Truth must be just as bad as anything else you’ve been through, prisoner inside your own skin, you were—” He stopped. “Here.” He opened up his arms and she inched closer along the edge of the seat, slid her thighs across his hands, and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’ve got you.”

He carried her upstairs, straight to the bed, turned his head after handing her a worn shirt from his dresser. He heard the rustling of fabric and turned back to find her tucked in with the covers pulled up to her chin, her clothing folded in a neat pile on a chair next to the bed. He smiled. Polite to the end.

“You’ll sleep. Tomorrow will look different to you.”

“Why did he do it, Spike?”

“Because he loves you beyond any reason to do otherwise, I’d suspect.”

“Love. How can people use love as the reason for doing any bad thing?”

He sat on a corner of the bed. “‘Fraid I’m not the best one to answer that question, pet. ‘Sides, you’ve got to sleep.”

“I really shouldn’t take your bed, Spike. I know you’re here in the apartment with me, but I don’t think I could take being alone here in the bed, not yet, because I don’t know where anything is and if I had to get up or felt like putting my fist through a wall or something…”

His stomach lurched.  Had she even known what she'd said?

“Lie down," he told her gently.   "We’ll rest.”

He adjusted the covers and lay on top of them, next to her. He kicked off his boots.

“In for the night. This good?”

She sighed deeply and he felt her finally begin to relax.

“This will do.”


	4. Saturday Vigil

Pounding head. Tired feet rubbed raw from walking. And the shoulder…the less dwelt upon that injury the better.

Wes had traveled to all of Fred's former haunts – the obvious ones like her apartment, the diner and the parks she liked, to the less obvious scenery – the look-out points, the library at her old university, an out of the way café she'd shown him once in passing. When those leads had all led nowhere, Wesley realized that he had some inkling to where Illyria might go too, and so he visited the warehouse district and the sewers just to be sure. His thoughts jumbled for a moment, remembering a time when Fred frequented those places also and his head throbbed painfully again. ' _Who am I really looking for here?'_ he wondered, forcing himself back to the office where a frightened Fred or vengeful Illyria might return to find him after all.

He opened the door to the office and glanced around, feeling its emptiness. No visitors.

"Hi, honey," an amused voice purred from his leather desk chair. "Tough day?"

After seeing Fred alive again, Wesley had no more energy to be shocked. "Lilah," he sighed in exhaustion. "To what do I owe the...well, the honor of your presence would be stretching it, wouldn't it?"

She turned around in his chair to face him, a satisfied smile playing across her lips. "I guess it would. Believe me, there ain't a lot that will drag a girl out of the depths of hell these days."

"How's that working out?"

"What can I say? The pictures in the brochure way exaggerated. But I couldn't miss this. That was some wild mojo you pulled off today. I just had to check it out for myself."

Wesley stared at the figure in the black business suit, her stiletto heels crossed coolly at the ankles and resting on the corner of his desk. "I saved a young woman's life and rid the world of an evil creature that would have meant certain destruction to us all. There were bound to be some," he hesitated. "...side effects."

Lilah's eyes widened. "Is that what you're telling yourself? Wow. Your powers of self-deception sure got honed since I bit the big one."

"You're not..." he struggled, looking away from her, willing her to be gone. "…you're not real."

"I'm a lot more real than your girl out there. Or should I say," she grinned and winked. "'Girls?'"

He opened his eyes, forgetting for a moment that she must be a figment. "What exactly do you think happened here today?"

"My sources tell me a resurrection spell crossed with the mother of all binding spells, although the look on your face tells me it went even deeper than that." Lilah rose from the chair and crossed the room towards him. "Check your dictionary, Wes. That's 'binding' as in 'bound to' and I'm not talking about the fun kind of bondage that we played around with, but the big black voodoo kind that makes a girl like me weak in the knees."

He thought wildly of the dramatic shifts of Fred's personality, from something remotely like herself and back to Illyria again. "The spells," he whispered. "They worked."

"A little too well, I think you'll find. Which is why I'm here. Nice job donning the black hat, cowboy."

"It wasn't an act of evil!" he snapped. "It was an act of mercy."

"Oh, Wes," she smiled and clapped her hand on his ruined shoulder. A gesture of camaraderie, it succeeded only in making him wince. "That parting shot the god-king gave you at the church has got to tell you different."

Blinking through the pain, his conviction on the true identity of the woman he resurrected began to waver. "It wasn't...it wasn't Illyria."

"But it wasn't your girlfriend either, was it?"

He squeezed his eyes shut. "No."

"Illyria and Fred, one body, two separate pissed-off-at-you entities. Aside from the overwhelming need to make really bad versions of the Patty Duke Show theme song, what did you really think would happen? They were going to come frolicking out of there all grateful and play nice?"

"You don't understand," he whispered. "I couldn't lose her."

She put her arm around his shoulders gently and he let her, leaning against her certainty and strength. "Baby, I understand better than anyone, you should know that. I've been watching you. You couldn't stand to see what no one else could, that your sweet Fred stayed trapped inside her own skin, a prisoner of the very thing your best friend allowed to infect her with in the first place. A nice knife to the gut and that showed him, didn't it?"

Wes snapped to attention and jerked away from her. "I don't need a play-by-play for these past few months, Lilah. I've lived them. I need to know where she is and how I can find her."

"You do mean 'them,' don't you? How to find _them_?"

The full breadth of his actions started to dawn on Wesley. "If Illyria's anywhere inside of her, she'll be hell-bent on revenge. Fred...she'll be so lost, so alone...she must feel so betrayed..."

Lilah winked. "What a crazy pair."

He glared at her. "You can help me or you can leave."

"I'm leaving regardless. Before I do, though, think about your next step. What are you going to do with this thing you've made? Are you counting on the idea that Fred's cringing in some romantic corner, waiting for you to come save her again, or that Illyria's started linking up her chain of command?"

He thought of Fred's body twisting in the church, her coldness, her bitterness, and her physical strength. So little of the Fred he held while she died, and too much like the invader of her body that he'd tolerated these past weeks.

"How many hours have you been combing the streets now? Ten? Twelve?" Lilah pressed. "Face it, Wes. Whatever's coming back to you, it's not coming on its own."

"She," Wesley corrected, his voice shaking with pain and anger. "It's she, I know it is."

"Which one?"

Wesley held silent, considering the question.

"Getting creative with pronoun usage doesn't change the facts. You know what you have to do." She nodded towards his desk. "Go on. You know this isn't something the white knights can strap on. Besides, it's for her own good, isn't it?"

"Yes," he murmured. Dazedly, he stumbled towards the phone on his desk. "I can't have her be hunt down, like an animal, like..."

"...an enemy?" Lilah finished with a smirk. "Don't tell me you really want Angel & Company swooping in to clean up your mess. Face it, Wes. You fucked up."

With a trembling hand, he reached for the phone.

"Fortunately for us, that just makes me love you a little bit more."

"This is Wesley Wyndham Pryce," he said into the phone with authority. "Please activate the black guard. We have..." he faltered, and then felt the aching twinge in his shoulder remind him of what he had unleashed. "We have a fugitive: Illyria posing as Ms. Burkle. Recover her and bring her in ... alive."

"That's my boy," he heard Lilah sigh.

He slammed down the phone. "I hope you're satisfied." He looked up and found himself alone.

_Dear God_ , he thought in horror. _Whatever have I done?_

 

Angel had almost gotten used to how many decisions the CEO of LA's Wolfram & Hart branch made on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis. Weekends didn't exist and business didn't stop after 5 pm. But if he had known how many phone calls he'd receive in the precious pre-dawn hours when he slept the soundest, he might have turned down the job. He'd learned to turn off the phone instead, after midnight. Whatever needed his attention would hold until a more respectable hour.

So when the leader of the mysterious and practically mercenary faction of the Wolfram & Hart security fleet known as the Black Guard called Angel for verification on a late-night order, he connected straight to Angel's voice mail.

The Black Guard didn't leave voice mail. They suited up at first light.

 

"Please. I've made a terrible mistake. There must be a way to call them off," Wesley begged to yet another operator on the Wolfram & Hart switchboard, his third that morning. "Perhaps if you patch me through to their radio en route?"

 "Sir, like we've already told you, you're not on a secure line," the operator, a woman, replied tiredly.

"Then damn well secure it!" he yelled.

"I don't have clearance, sir. None of us have clearance to the Guard's secure line."

"Someone must."

"Yes," she paused. "Mr. Angel does."

"Can you try Mr. Angel's lines again, please?"

A stifled sigh came across the receiver. "Sir, Mr. Angel lives in the very building from which you're calling. Wouldn't it be easier to simply go find him?"

Right, and _face_ Angel with this news? The phone call would be bad enough: 'Good morning, Angel. Hate to trouble you, but the ghost of Lilah convinced me to arm the Black Guard and arrest the girlfriend I resurrected, along with the hell-god that inhabits her body. Now I believe I've changed my mind. Fix it, if you would.' Not a chance.

He gripped the phone tighter. "His lines again, please."

"Yes sir," the woman said. "Right away, sir."

A groggy voice suddenly clicked on. "Hello?"

"Mr. Angel, sir. I'm connecting a call from Wesley Wyndham Pryce."

"Yeah, fine, go ahead. Wes? Why the hell are you calling me? Just come up."

"Good morning, Angel," Wesley began. "Hate to trouble you…"

 

Spike rolled over, his arm searching the bed for the companion he had held through the night, but found only a space next to him.

 He felt a flash of panic at where she might have gone and then heard muffled bursts of running water. Turning over towards the bathroom, he saw the door closed and heard the taps squeak on, then off, then on again. He rolled onto his back, and the grim realization of what she must be doing hit him hard.

_She's trying to wash it off. The blue._

Before he could tend to her, the cell phone jangled noisily from the coffee table in the apartment's front room. Frowning, he went out to answer it.

"Spike," said Angel. "We've got a situation."

"I'll say we do. What the hell did he do to her?"

"You mean she's with you? Spike, find a way to get her here. Now."

Spike paused, considering the demand. "Do I get paid for working Saturdays?"

"Spike!" Angel yelled and Spike jerked the phone away from his ear.

"Hold on, it's not what you think. She's changed."

"Into Fred. Yeah, Spike. Here's the thing. I've been talking with Wes. We've discussed it and…look, it's not Fred. It can't be Fred. It's Illyria; she's snowing you."

"Discuss whatever the hell you like. It's Fred," Spike insisted. "I can smell her. Hell, I'd still know. She's all kinds of lost, but still Fred."

Angel paused. "What about Illyria?"

Spike stepped into the hallway and glanced warily at the bathroom door. "No sign of her yet."

"What a nightmare," Angel sighed tiredly. "I knew how torn up Wes had been, especially since the Burkles visited, but I never thought he'd go this far. He tried – I don't really know what he tried. He pulled a spell off somehow. Maybe a book of them. From what he said, Illyria's still in there somewhere."

"Stall for me. I'll get us some answers."

"Wait—!" Angel began but Spike clicked the phone shut. He paced for a few moments, flipped the phone open again and dialed.

"Your ass is so fescue, my spiked punch," Lorne greeted in a low voice. "Even I can't charm your way out of this one."

"Need only one thing, mate. Not sure if I'm up to warbling it out for you, though."

"Save your un-breath. Could hear what you want all the way to Memphis, and that's not whistling honky-tonk. Clinic on the Southside. Got a pen?"

Spike copied the number and address onto his palm. "Owe you one, Lorne."

"You're gonna owe me one more that's even better: move fast. Seems Wes got a case of ants in the pants waiting for the girls to mosey on back, decided to take matters into his own hands."

"How antsy did he get?"

"To the tune of calling in the Black Guard."

"Then call 'em off!" Spike glanced at the bathroom door again. "She'll come back to the fold when she's good and damn ready. Not now."

"No can do, Spikester. That's the little trick about the Black Guard. Orders check in but they don't check out."

"Seen better tricks on a bloody show pony," Spike muttered.

"Hey, get off the phone already," Lorne said. "Buy me a drink if she's back."

"Ice your cocktails," Spike answered. "We're about to belly up to the bar."

Ending the call, Spike walked over to the bathroom, its door still shut and its occupant silent.

He knocked hesitantly. "Fred. Are you ill?"

"No."

"Are you hungry?"

"No."

"Fred, there's someone I think you should see. A doctor-type that practices on…" He caught himself before he could say 'demons.' "Uh, one who's off the beaten path?"

"No. No doctors. No science," she said, and a choked laugh echoed from inside. "Ain't that a riot coming from me? Science queen, right. More like the crowned freak. What I know is all I got left. I should do the experiments on myself. Just hack off a little bit of skin, see what's wiggling around underneath. Sure, why not?"

The sound of her voice worried him.

He knocked again, harder. "Fred, what are you doing in there?"

A different smell drifted from under the door, strong, metallic and all too familiar.

"Fred!" he yelled. When she didn't answer, he broke through the door.

The sight of her broke his heart.

Every long bleeding cut she jutted into her skin oozed and bubbled human blood. He watched as the blood trickled down her arm and then how the cut welled up, fusing the two folds of skin together again. The skin itself had healed, although though the girl could hardly be called that, with her arms covered in rivulets of drying blood.

He grabbed the razor blade from her – a rusty bit of metal he remembered seeing in the medicine cabinet – and tossed it into the toilet. Then he turned on the taps of the sink, testing the water for warmth. "Come here, now. Let's see to you." Guiltily, she held her arms out to him and he guided her bloodstained wrists under the water.

"I found soap." She nodded to the bottle of detergent on the sink basin. Another remnant of his flat's previous tenant, he recalled seeing the same full bottle of soap under the sink. It sat almost empty.

He lathered the soap in his hands, gently massaging her skin with his fingertips. In the hollow of her elbow and in the crevices of her wrists and knuckles, he saw the faint lines of blue.

"I scrubbed. I scrubbed over and over again. Cleanliness is next to godliness, you know." She leaned against him, allowing him to cleanse her.

She looked up with eyes wide and desperate. "It won't come off," she whispered, as though uttering a horrible secret. He knew she meant the blue marks of Illyria – not the rusty blood that swirled down the drain. She trembled under his hands.

He squeezed her arms in return. "It will. Now that you're back."

She grinned suddenly, a face made wicked by her dry, cracked lips and wan complexion. "Ain't you the positive thinker?"

He turned off the water and pulled a towel from the wall rack. Wrapping the towel loosely around her arms, he patted her dry and tried a smile. "Good as new, see there?"

"But still blue." She snatched her arms away from him and let the towel fall to the floor. She began scratching at one of the blue lines in the crook of her elbow, the skin never changing its shade despite the clawing of her fingernails.

He put his hand over hers. "Stop."

She obeyed and gazed up at him mournfully, giving him a chance to really see her for the first time since she'd returned.

In the fluorescent light of the bathroom, she looked wild and ghostly pale. She'd managed a revised toilette while he slept, combing her hair back wet in hopes, he wondered, of hiding the blue streaks in it. Blue flecks still marked her forehead and she still looked as sickly as he'd seen her at her worst. Yet the faintest hint of pink had begun to flush her cheeks and her lips, like a promise that the rest of her wouldn't be far behind.

He indicated her outfit. "See you found everything all right?" She'd added a pair of his jeans to the black t-shirt he'd lent her to sleep in and had wound one of his belts through the impossibly small cinch around her waist.

"Oh," her face reddened. "Sorry. I should've asked."

"Not at all. Never seen my clothes on anyone, including me. Never knew I looked so good."

"Please," she scoffed. "I know I look like the biggest creature feature, complete with the obligatory blood and gore scene."

"Yeah, about that," he said carefully. "What were you doing, Fred?"

"Just an experiment she wanted to see," Fred sang softly, with a sad little smile. "'Cause she is a she, Spike. Wes tried calling her 'it' but the 'she' was right on the money. Like Mother Nature. Only a woman could be such a bitch." She blinked her eyes slowly and for a moment, Spike thought she might faint.

"Hey!" he grabbed her and steadied her. "Listen to me. The blood's human, did you see that? You're human."

She leveled her gaze to his with deadly severity. "Then what's this?"

Without warning, she wrapped her hand around his throat, picking him up until his toes scraped the tile of the bathroom floor. With one lunge, she threw him out of the bathroom and crashing into the wall across from the bed, releasing a cloud of plaster dust. Too stunned to register anger, he could only sit and stare at her in growing alarm.

"Heroes. I called you heroes. I must have been delirious. I walk with numbskulls! 'What Fred would have wanted,'" she jeered. "Nobody even asked me. I wanted to live!"

The sweet fragrance of Fred died next to him. "Blue?" he gasped.

Fred blinked. In a rush, her scent filled his head again.

"Oh, God. Spike, I'm so sorry. Look what I went and did to you." She knelt next to him and awkwardly brushed the plaster off his shirt. "This is crazy. I don't know what I'm doing," she whispered.

"You can control this. You've got friends, Fred, people who want to help you. Let me help you."

"Help me. Sure. Better late than never."

 

 


	5. Long Day's Journey

The doctor's office looked like any other examining room, just with more silver jabbing gadgets than most, Spike thought. The doctor looked like any other physician in his lab coat, save for the addition of frizzy hair and loose, pebbly skin. Fred endured the trials of the endoscope and x-ray without emotion or reaction, but when Spike tried to release her hand to go for a cigarette, she refused to let go of him. The demon physician gathered the slides and notes in a manila folder, jotted a few comments inside, and smiled at Fred.

"So, I'll bite. Sword swallowing or fire eating?" he asked.

"Huh?"

"The world map of scar tissue pretty much everywhere inside of you. What happened, you come across a flamethrower, open up and say 'ahh'?"

Spike cleared his throat. "Demon spirit set up shop in her for a bit. Our Fred's back for good now."

The doctor frowned. "Demon? This may require more tests. What kind?"

"Ancient sort. Called herself Illyria."

"An old one? That's not a demon. Been a while since my history lessons, but from what I recall that's more like a force, an element. No more evil than a parasite. Well, unless you're the host."

"The host. Party at Fred's place," she joked weakly.

"Miss, you're fine. Every single organ in your body looks like it took a turn under the old Rotis-a-mat, but you'll live."

"I'll live. Great. I'll live as what?" She pulled a scalpel off his examining table and expertly sliced into her arm with all the practice of a trained scientist.

"Don't!" The doctor shouted and tried to grab at her hand, but the wound bled and healed before he could make a move. Staring at her arm, he handed Fred a gauze bandage.

"I see you're the experimenting type," he sighed.

"Used to be," she said, swabbing the blood from her arm. "I'm losing my taste for it by the minute. What the hell is going on with me?"

"This might explain that little side effect." He bit his lip and threw an x-ray up on the lit reading screen. "I took the films five different times to be sure."

Fred's mouth dropped open in surprise. Slowly, she slid off the examining table and stared at the illuminated x-ray film. The first shot showed the head of Fred, in profile, with what appeared to be a coiled layer of antennae curling around the outline of her skull. Her fingers reached out in wonder to it, then briefly touched the second film and the third, pictures of Fred's arm and her torso, all normal enough x-rays except for the twisting bands around her, like a living nest knit under her skin. "It looks like, like a double negative."

"Yeah, except its not. See the energy field around you?" He pointed to the outline of spirals on one slide with a gnarled finger. "That's Illyria. Your sustenance."

Spike thought of the book Wesley had shown them, the lithograph of Illyria in its purest form, and looked again at the x-rays. Tentacles. Bands of them, all pasting Fred back together.

"That's… us?"

The doctor looked down. "Right."

"Super," she choked, looking away from the films and closing her eyes.

"Hey, that's nothing to sneeze at, being bound to an old one. Think of the perks! You'll never get sick and you're stronger then any human has a right to be. Put it this way, you find yourself alone in a deserted alley and a couple sickos jump you? You can take back your own night."

"Any other side effects we should know about?" Spike asked.

"It's a shot in the dark. I mean it's not like I see this kind of thing everyday. Some memory loss maybe? Muscle atrophy?"

"Can I be killed?" Fred asked quietly.

"You're a tough nut to crack," he winked. "It would take a lot to bring you down."

Fred fixed him with a cold stare. "How much?"

"Your human body could be damaged, sure, with enough force." He began to look uneasy. "What are you getting at, hon?"

"Illyria," Fred said in a voice deep and resolute. "Get it out of me."

"Oh, sweetie. That's not a job for me. She's bound pretty tight in there. Maybe a visit to the Deeper Well, but no. For sure, that place would kill you in a heartbeat." He pressed the stethoscope to her chest and grinned. "Which I'm pleased to report, you definitely have. Give a listen?"

Fred turned her head away. "No, thank you."

"Appreciate the diagnosis, doc. I think she needs a little time to get used to her new roommate." Spike took the folder from the demon's clawed hands. Fred had already left the office.

* * *

 

"You heard the man. She's not evil."

Fred paused at the sound of his footsteps in the hallway. "She's not exactly a saint either. Boy, that figures. Of all the demons to get shackled to, I get the morally ambiguous kind."

"She's not a demon. There's worse things," Spike said, stopping behind her. "Like you being dead, for one. This is how you get to live."

"What difference does it make?"

He stepped forwards and whipped her around. "A bloody lot, now that you're asking. Do you know how much we all wanted this? Having you back again?"

"Wesley wanted it so bad that he moved heaven and earth to do it, 'cause here I am. Still doesn't mean I'm supposed to be here. You heard what the doctor said, too. I'm stronger than any human has a right to be." She glared at him. "So maybe my rights should be revoked."

He peered into her face. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. Let's get out of here."

He opened his palms up to her. "You point the way, pet."

She began walking stiffly down the hall. "I wish to return to where I transformed," came a familiar inhuman voice.

The sound chilled him. "Uh, come again?"

She turned around and he felt relief, seeing Fred's face. "Sorry. My apartment. You said you have a key."

"I said I could get us in. Come on then."

* * *

 

Spike had never visited Fred's place when she had last been with them. Yet even he could tell that the apartment had missed the imprint of Fred for many weeks, undusted with a strange displacement of things being moved randomly, not from normal use but from a restless hand. The air smelled close and stale. He watched as Fred wandered carefully through the dark rooms.

"He's been here a lot," she said finally, standing at the doorway to her bedroom.

"That he has," Spike agreed.

"Why?" she asked bitterly. Her voice deepened, blurring again the lines between Fred and Illyria.

"To feel closer to you, I'd suspect."

"It's disgusting," she spat and he could no longer tell who spoke the words. He decided at that moment to stop trying. If she couldn't give herself a clean slate, Spike thought, he could at least lend her one from him.

She entered the bedroom and traced her fingers along the spines of the books on her bookcase. "So much work," she whispered. "So much time." She slumped cross-legged onto the floor in front of the books and absently pulled texts off the shelves, until a set of index cards fell into her lap.

With shaking hands she picked one card up and began to read it aloud, in a voice half-sobbing and half-laughing. "'Consider the non-perturbitive properties of superstring theory. In D-Branes…'" She dropped the cards.

She sat still for a moment, breathing heavily, then began to shake her head slowly from side to side. Inching away from the bookshelf on her hands and knees, she stared horrified as though its contents held some unimaginable torment. "No, no, no, no," she whimpered.

Before Spike could react, she jumped to her feet. She clenched her jaw angrily, her whole body stunned and trembling, wrapped her hands around the edge of the bookcase and hauled it over with a tremendous crash. She threw her head back and wailed in agony.

"Fred!" he yelled and lunged to her side, holding her out to check for physical injury before pulling her close to him. She fought him, thrashed against him, sobbing.

"Let me go!" she screamed. Then calmly, with a jerking tilt of her head, "I can reach down your throat and decapitate you with your own tongue."

"Yeah," he panted, grabbing her shoulders. "But Fred won't."

"No, I won't, I won't, I won't," she sobbed, slumping against his chest. "There's nothing left. This is a side effect?" she cried, staring helplessly up at the ceiling. "This is murder!"

"What is, love? What is it?"

She looked up at him miserably. "That was my theory, Spike. And it's gone, gone, all gone," she pointed a shaking finger to her head. "She took this from me." Fred faced her vanity mirror and narrowed her eyes with a fierce savagery he'd never seen there before.

"I can see her there, walled up inside me. God. Bitch. Killer. Get out of me!" Shaking her head violently, she reached over and grabbed a smooth glass paperweight from her bureau. With a wicked swing, she flung the trinket and smashed it through the mirror – breaking glass in her wake and lodging pieces into the wall behind it.

"Stop now, love. Stop," he told her. "You're every bit of Fred as not. That mirror will lie to you."

Glancing back at the broken glass behind her, she smiled faintly. "Not anymore."

He rested his palm against the side of her face, feeling the heat of her skin burn behind his hand. "No. You saw to that." Spike pulled her close as though he could shield her from her pain, feeling her chest rise and expand erratically against his.

"The Deeper Well," she asked hoarsely. "What is it?"

His breath caught. "Nothing you need to trouble yourself about."

"Please tell me," her voice came from against his coat. "You haven't lied to me yet."

Spike exhaled wearily. "Illyria's burial ground."

"Show me."

"Fred," his voice turned suspicious. "Why?"

"Because I asked you to," she said, drawing her head up. "That good enough?"

"Not even close."

"I've heard the stories, Spike. All the things you did for Buffy, even when you didn't have a soul. You can't do this for me, now that you have one?"

"Could be why I won't. Besides, it's all the way over in merry ole England."

"You got something better to do?" She snatched up the index cards that lay scattered on the floor and ripped them into four quarters, tossing the pieces under her feet on her way to the door. "God knows I don't."

They reached the lobby of the apartment building and Spike saw something outside that made him back away from the door. "Can't go out there, love."

"Oh, god it's daylight. I don't know what I was thinking. We have to go downstairs to get the car out of the garage anyway."

"No. _We_ can't go out there." He pointed to the black van that had screeched to a halt by the curb. "And we can forget the car, too. Let's fly, pigeon."

* * *

 

"Who are they?" Fred whispered, as they made their way through the maze of the building's boiler room.

"They go by the Black Guard, I'm told."

"You were told?" she echoed. "You knew this would happen?"

"Lorne said this morning…"

"Lorne? When did you have time to talk…?" she stopped. "When I was in the bathroom. They called looking for me."

"Something like that."

"Why did they even bother to call?" She held up her pinky and thumb, mimicking a telephone. "'We're going to take you prisoner, just thought you might wanna pack a lunch first.'" She dropped her hand and took a breath. "Who called them in the first place?"

They arrived at a metal bridge, with a ladder and a landing, similar to a fire escape. Spike used it as an excuse to avoid her question. "I can pull this ladder down, reckon there'll be a way to the basement, then to the sewers."

"Spike." She stood with her hands on her hips, demanding and terrified both, looking so incongruous in his clothes with her half-blue hair and mottled face. "Who called them?"

"Who do you think?" When she didn't respond, he pulled the ladder free and swung himself around it. "I'll go down first, see how far we have to jump to reach ground."

She pushed him out of the way and started climbing down herself. "No. I'll go. I'm the tough nut remember? You've still got your candy-coated shell."

 


	6. Sunday Congregation

"You weave through these sewers like you were born to it," Spike said, breaking the silence of their journey. She hadn't spoken since they'd climbed down and started walking.

"Yeah. Shoulda built the condo down here like I wanted."

"You wanted to do that?"

"There was a time," she said softly. "How much farther do you think we should go?"

"I think we're coming up on downtown," he pointed above them. "Listen. More stop and go traffic than interstate. We'll start seeing service room doors. Take a look, see if we find a garage, and we'll nick a mode of transport."

She looked back at him. "We're going to steal a car?"

"Car, bus, truck, even a bloody boat might work. You're under the heavy boot of the Black Guard, petal. Don't let your moral conscience prick you now."

"I'm not," she shrugged. "I just wondered how you'd disable a car alarm, that's all."

"Oh. Well. You know. The usual way."

They walked in silence for a few more minutes, then passed a door with a metal sign on it, "KEEP OUT! SERVICE ENTRANCE ONLY! The Grand Bacchanal Hotel."

"What do you know," Spike said, forcing the handle of the door down until it snapped open. "Looks like they're expecting us."

The crept through the hotel's basement parking garage until they found two tour buses parked around the back, one full of luggage and the other full of sound equipment. "LAX" proclaimed the destination sign. He forced open the door of the second bus.

"Ladies first."

"What are we doing?"

"We're going to make like a drum and sit still. Bus's gotta go back to the airport sometime."

"And then?"

"Then, if you still want it, we jet the company bird over the pond."

She flashed him a shy, grateful smile and together they boarded the bus and moved straight to the back. "What if someone finds us?"

"They won't. Figure this ship's a cargo bay only. Here." He put his arm around her and they huddled together on the floor of the bus, secreted between the back seat and the one on-board bathroom. He adjusted a rough blanket over them for a makeshift tent. Even with all the equipment jamming the seats and the aisle, giving them sufficient cover from the driver's view, he couldn't chance their discovery.

"Look Fred, I know you're scared…"

She jutted her chin out stubbornly. "I'm not scared."

"Right. 'Course you're not. Do what you have to do to make yourself as comfortable as you can. We're in for a long ride."

She nodded and wrapped a tentative arm around his waist. Slowly, she eased her knees away from her chest, sitting Indian-style next to him. "Is this okay?"

"It's fine."

The tension and worry of hiding make it impossible for either body to relax. The warmth of her arm along his back seemed to thaw his cool skin underneath.

He felt her still trembling against him and wondered if he should dare pull her closer. She could do her worst – slap him, throw him back – and that'd be the end of it. He leaned over her, his nose stirring where her hair parted and exposed the thin white of her scalp. Here's where he could smell the thick of her, all adrenalin, fear and unwashed sleep, the unmistakable fragrance of Fred rising up from deep within her mortal core. It'd be worth the risk to bury himself, if only for an instant, into the ripe cloud of her.

So he eased her body closer, half-heaving her into his lap and waited for the blow that would doubtlessly follow. Fred only tightened her grip around his waist and exhaled a tremulous sigh. Relaxing with her, he smiled against her hair and closed his eyes.

"Hey, I can feel you smiling. If there's a joke here, you need to share it."

"No joke. Good to have you back is all."

He felt her breathing catch. "I'm not really back. I'm not really me anymore."

"You're wrong about that. I know it's you. I can tell."

"How?"

"Not sure how to explain it, love."

She snuggled closer against his chest. "Try."

Staring at the woman he held, he couldn't begin to know what to do with her. He could feel her fear, but could sense no hesitation from her about holding on to him, no inner part of her recoiling at his touch – craving it as much as she hated it. Blessed relief in itself, that was. Didn't care for it much without the soul; didn't think he could bear it with one. Yet this, a dear girl clutching him for dear life, wrapping herself around him and over him, pressing her heat into him, he could see how this would get unbearable, too. She needed him, had put herself literally into his hands.

"Humans got their own scent. No two alike. You get some similar, like folks in the same family. But never exactly the same."

"Okay…"

"You smell like you. Like Fred. Could pick you out of a crowded football stadium it's so strong of you."

"Really?" she shivered. "What do I smell like?" He felt her mouth move upwards against his chest.

"Warm," he began.

"Don't all people smell warm?"

"Scent's not only of the body, but of the soul. Some give you the taste of gunmetal or cement they're so cold."

"So you taste people too?"

"Demon senses. Smell and taste connected. There's the science of it for you."

"I can do the same thing with you," she whispered. "Maybe I'm a demon now."

"You're not," he said firmly.

"You could smell me from far away though. I have to be close. Like this close." He felt her hot breath against his neck.

"What's my flavor, pet?" he asked through the growing lump in his throat. "Rocky road ripple?"

Fred giggled, a sweet melody he didn't realize how much he had missed. "It is hard to describe. I definitely smell leather."

"Obviously."

"And smoke."

"Not telling me a thing I don't already know here."

Inhaling against his throat, brushing her lips unintentionally against his jaw as she did so, he stifled a grunt of longing that suddenly erupted in his gut. He bit his lip and tried to ignore the cling of her touch that advanced several paces past friendship, tried to concentrate on comfort and care in holding her back. That hair, that tickling dark hair…he'd like to take a handful of it, draw her head back with aching patience, watch her mouth drop open for him.

"You smell warm, now that I know what that means. Kind of peppery. Sweet, too, not like candy but fresh. Like after a good rain." She eased back away from his neck. "I don't smell like Illyria?"

"She smelled like nothing. Vacant. That's not you, Fred."

"Do you like my smell?"

"Oh. Oh, yeah. Like nothing else on this earth."

"I know what you mean." She looked up at him and her eyes locked with his. "So… can you taste me?"

His tongue went dry in his mouth. "Uh-huh," he managed to breathe out carefully.

"Is it good?"

"Ah, Fred," he whispered nervously and tried to move away from her. "You've got to stop."

She tilted her head at him. "Stop what? I'm only asking questions."

"So why is it I can barely think straight?"

"Well, it is very dark. Also close, it's very close here and warm. Your skin almost feels warm." She caressed his arm through his jacket. "What you're doing for me, Spike. It makes me feel close to you. Do you feel close to me?"

"Crammed up in about five feet of space, I guess close would be the word…"

"That's not what I mean."

He gave a shaking sigh. "I know it. Maybe it's just your adrenaline juices talking, is all."

"Why can't it be you?"

"Because Fred. I'm an animal," he said flatly. "You and me, we're like night and day and I'm nothing a girl like you should want."

"Why do you say that?" She stroked the side of his head, a soothing touch that only roused him more. "Seems like we got a lot in common, here together."

"Yeah?" his voice cracked with a flicker of hope and then he shook his head. "Don't find anything in common with me, love. Shouldn't be me helping you out anyway."

"There's a lot of things that shouldn't have happened," she said with an ominous tone. "Like me even being here."

"I'm glad that it did."

She looked up at him again and this time the expression pleaded with him in that universal symbol of a girl wanting to be kissed. "There isn't anybody else, Spike. Don't you know that? There's just you and me right now."

"Not so worried about the right now of it. Later on, when you realize what I am, what we've done, you'll regret it and I won't, you see. Let me be your friend, Fred, and leave it at that. Please."

"There's all kinds of friends," she mumbled. She rested her head on his shoulder and finally drifted off to sleep.

 

 

Afternoon turned to evening in their cozy nest and the bus remained still. Spike extricated himself from Fred's embrace, crawled out of the bus and walked into the parking garage. He fished the cell phone out of his pocket and powered it up, pacing between the cars as he did so.

"This call's being traced," Angel answered on the first ring. "Hang up and get in here."

"Can't. Got a lady who wants to see the old homestead, pay her respects."

He could practically hear the gears creak in Angel's mind. "You can't let her go there."

"Let her? I'm supposed to be her escort. It's how we should've done it all along, Angel. You know that. Would've saved us all from this whole bloody mess."

"You know how to get there?"

"I think I remember the way."

"Spike," Angel said. "Tell her, tell her I miss her."

He flipped the phone shut, dropped it on the pavement, and smashed it under his boot. Spying a young man emptying out waste bins set by the garage's entrance to the hotel, he jogged over and tossed the pieces into the boy's open trash bag. "Thanks, mate. Piece of junk phone."

When he returned to Fred, he found her awake.

"We're still here. I can't wait anymore."

"Don't think we should. Ready to show me hell's own amount about cutting off a car alarm?"

She grinned back. "I thought you'd never ask."

Several minutes later, they sped out of the parking garage in a recently hotwired Camry.

"Now we're moving," she said. "Not fast, but forwards at least."

"How'd you know how to do that anyway?"

"How'd you?" she countered.

He gave her a deadpan look. "Because vampires loathe car payments. What's your excuse?"

"I like to know how things work. My dad used to be big into old cars and they were the first things I ever tinkered with."

"So this isn't a continuation of a life of crime?"

Fred laughed and he smiled back. "Heck no. Guess I can blame you for my descent into a criminal lifestyle."

His smile faded. "Yeah. I get that a lot."

"Oh, Spike, no," she said, eyes wide with apology. "I didn't mean…no."

"It's all right. Just makes me sure I did the right thing by you back on the bus. Wouldn't want to send you down any further than you've gone," he said, a trace of bitterness creeping into his voice.

"Don't judge me by every girl raised back from the dead," Fred said softly.

He dared to glance over at her. "I'll try to remember that."

 


	7. Flight Response

Spike parked the stolen car outside the hangar that housed the firm's jets and was relieved to see no black vans waiting for them. Fred stared off into the distance blankly.

"Hey," he nudged her and she looked over at him. "You still up for it, love?"

"I have to be."

"Well, we're here. If we're going to do this thing, we best get on it."

She looked around, took in her surroundings. "How do you know where this is? You've used the planes before?"

He chewed on his bottom lip. "Just twice."

"Oh," she said. "You went there."

"When you got sick. We tried. Not hard enough, as it turned out." He looked down. "I can't ask you to forgive and forget. If you could understand…"

"Nothing to understand," Fred said lowly. "If you hadn't gone, you wouldn't know how to bring me there now. That's just how it works out." She got out of the car and walked over to the door leading to the inside of the hangar.

"Mr. Spike," one of the crewmembers greeted him inside. "She's fueled up and ready to go. Nice to have you fly with us again."

At that, he could've sworn that he saw Fred shoot him angry glance tinged with blue, but he couldn't be sure. He realized then that the most difficult part of their whole journey was about to begin. With a heavy sigh, he buckled himself into one of the front seats. Fred sat several rows behind him.

"Aren't you going to tell me the story?" she said, her voice tight with sarcasm. "About how hard you tried to save me and how grateful I should be?"

"I will. When you're in the right frame of mind to hear it."

"I'm ready now," she said through clenched teeth.

"Why should I bother?" he muttered, leaning over to pluck a small whiskey bottle from the table in front of him. "Hear you tell it, you've been playing peek a boo inside Queen Bee the whole time. You must have picked up the story before now."

She flew out of her seat and next to him in a flash, knocking the bottle out of his hands.

"Don't you be flip with me! You let me die!"

"Right, I let you die so that I could save the rest of the free fucking world. That's what it would've taken to bring you back, get it? Illyria was here, eating you out from the inside, killing you, and to force her back would've sucked the souls out of every living being across the way. You…the Fred I knew, I didn't think you could've taken that."

Dazed, Fred slumped into the seat next to him. "That's what you were all talking about?"

"I didn't think you heard the details."

She reached across the aisle and picked up the small bottle of Jack Daniels and held it up to the light, turning the liquid in glass over in her hand.

"It was…it was like I was drowning inside of myself. But I couldn't stop looking or listening because then I knew that I would be gone. And I wasn't ready to be gone," she put her face in her hands. "I keep wanting to blame you, or Angel, or Wesley, or even the thing that's in me. But the truth is, I did this. I wasn't strong enough to let go."

Spike reached over and tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. "That's not weakness, Fred. That's called will. The will to live."

She smiled. "I don't know what's going to happen, but… thank you for this, for what you're doing. I saw you on the phone earlier; you set this up with Angel, right? What did he say?"

He felt his throat turn dry. "That he missed you."

"Yeah?" she asked, resting her head on his shoulder. "I miss me, too."

* * *

 

He passed the flight holding her, feeling them share some peace at last. Once they landed, however, he remembered Drogyn and felt a renewed sense of dread. As he led her through the silent forest, he struggled to find the right words that would show his concern for her.

"Here we are." No ninja guards rushed out to meet them on this trip. He pointed her towards the secret entrance hidden in the tree. "I'm going in with you," he decided.

"You've done enough," she snapped. "I mean, I'm okay, going in myself."

"What are you going to do in there, Fred? What could this place possibly show you?"

"I don't know," she said stubbornly. "That's why I'm here."

"Let me at least walk you in."

 

* * *

 

"Vampire," Drogyn called. "You've brought guests."

Spike took Fred by the shoulders. "Be careful with him- and be careful what you ask for, love." He glared at Drogyn and left the cave.

"Hi there." Fred waved nervously. "This place is... wow. I feel like I'm in the middle of church."

"No, this is not a place of worship." He paused, studying her. "You've been to one of those, haven't you?"

"Yes." She looked down.

"You have questions."

"I thought I had tons of 'em." She moved towards the side of the cave. "I guess it really boils down to one or two."

"I am not in the habit of answering questions."

Fred's hands curled into fists.  "I'm thinkin' maybe in this case you'll make an exception?  Seein's who I've got bunkin' inside of me?"

Drogyn eyed her warily then gave a short bow. "Begin."

Fred looked down into the chasm, wondering for a moment why someone would make a hole full of stairs and where they could possibly lead. When her eyes adjusted to the dark, she saw the rows and rows of sarcophagi, and drew a heaving breath as she turned around.

"Take Illyria out of me."

Drogyn frowned. "You do not know what you demand."

"This is her burial ground, right? Well, I've got her. You can bury her, once and for all."

"And yourself along with her."

"I know," she answered in a small voice.

"Do you?" He faced her. "You're prepared for death?

"What was I doing when she took me? I died then just as much. Pieces of me, I guess. It felt like all of me."

"In most circumstances, I would complete this task without hesitation. Yours are not most circumstances." With eyes closed, he placed one hand on her forehead and the other on the back of her neck, as if testing her temperature. He nodded gravely, patted her cheek once, and released her.

"As I thought. It cannot be done."

She jumped. "No! Why? Please, I can pay you whatever you want! I need you to do this!"

"This is not a matter of economics! Illyria cannot be extricated from you. You have grounded her with your humanity, your ties to this world."

"Ties." Fred wrinkled her brow in confusion. "My friends have already said goodbye to me. My parents haven't really known me since I left home. And my big theory that was going to change the world? That's pretty much gone poof out of my head, which leaves me with..."

"Love. The one you love. The force of it is so strong inside you that it tethers your entire existence. There is nothing I can do to break it."

She backed away from him. "It's, it's not Wesley."

Drogyn shook his head. "It is not the sorcerer whom you love."

Fred flashed an uneasy smile. "Well of course that's who you think it is! There hasn't been anyone else, not since Charles. Not until…" Her smile faded. She shook her head. "It isn't true."

"My dear, I cannot speak to you anything but the truth. It is my destiny, my curse."

"Like mine?

"You wish me to interpret your curse as your fusion to Illyria, but I understand your real meaning. I will tell you this: love is neither curse nor destiny. It is simply a state of being, a natural part of living. Which you undeniably are, despite your bond to the old one."

"I don't love him!" Fred cried out, her voice echoing in the darkness. Drogyn watched her and she suddenly felt the need to turn away from him. She thought of Spike's body against hers while she had slept, his arms around her, and the scent of him on the clothes she wore.

She looked helplessly to Drogyn. "Do I?"

"Your questions," he said with another bow. "Have been answered." He disappeared into the shadows of the cave and left Fred alone in the flickering torchlight.

Love. It couldn't be this, what she felt, this wanton gratitude. If that were all it came down to, she would have been grateful to Wesley for this second chance at life. How he had done it … _do not believe for one moment that you are free of me...your shell is mine...I will take it back into my rightful possession at the first opportunity..._ spoke only of his needs, not hers. Whereas Spike… _he would not have the power or inclination for magic...he chose to bury you and allow me to come forth, both he and that leader of his who saved you from none of it... he does nothing but make you moisten, is that what living means to you…_ refused to think of anything but her. Although he would not have brought her back, now that she'd returned, he wouldn't let her go.

When she emerged, she caught Spike in mid-pace under the tree. His head shot up when he saw her.

"Thank bloody whoever that you're out of there!" he blurted and ran over to her, looking ready to pull her automatically into an embrace. She quickly folded her arms in front of her to block him and his arms dropped to his sides.

"Right. Sorry. So what'd you get out of it?"

She shook her head. "Not really what I expected. I'm sorry I made you come all this way. Let's just go back."

"Sorry for your waste of time, love." He tried to offer a smile. "I know it's not want you wanted. But I'm glad to have you back, Fred. Not just from there, but here. Here at all." He held out his hand hopefully.

She looked down at his open palm, full of pleading and promise. She wrapped her fingers around his gratefully. "Thank you."

"Got a hug waiting here with your name on it," he said gruffly, his voice low with embarrassment. "If you need it. You just tell me when."

She squeezed his hand and together they walked out of the darkened forest.

***

They walked back to the plane hand in hand in silence. Well, what did he expect? That she would've peppered him with questions the whole way back? Waiting for her to come out of that cave had felt like an eternity. Would she have even come out to say goodbye? Perhaps Drogyn would have brought him word that he'd somehow have had to pass back to Angel: return flight to LAX, one passenger knew the resolve in her face; he'd seen it, hell, he'd felt it: the sad knowledge that grasping on to a recycled life instead of no life at all was a fundamental weakness; feeling the emptiness of it, the waste, and then the hope that it would finally be relieved of you. Surely Drogyn had given her the chance. Something had changed her mind.

"You're holding something for me," Fred finally interrupted their silence on the plane. "Can I have it?"

He tilted his head at her looking puzzled for only an instant before he opened his arms to her. She crawled inside and sobbed, finally letting out some of the pent-up emotion he'd seen stirring underneath her surface for so long.

"I'm sorry, love. I'm so, so sorry. Wanted to save you more than anything, no matter what that ruddy gatekeeper might have told you."

"He didn't tell me about that. He barely told me anything at all. What about this, Spike? Can anyone tell me about this?" She pulled off her borrowed t-shirt with shaking hands and he saw what no one but she had yet seen about her body, the thick lapis blue veins throbbing along her breasts and torso, too severe and too strange to ignore. "Who'll want me now?"

Seeing the pain in her eyes from her body so marred this way, he averted his gaze to pull a blanket over her that lay on the back of her seat. Her hands stopped him and her eyes never left his face. "Am I that ugly?"

"Of course you're not."

"Touch me?" she asked, the pleading of her voice seeping into his heart. "Please touch me. What are they?"

"Scars, that's all they are." He let her guide his hand to the quivering flesh of her blue-lined stomach. "Got plenty of 'em myself, see?" He took her hand and traced it along his left eyebrow. "Medals you wear for getting out alive."

"Are you glad I'm alive?"

"Very."

"Show me," she whispered and leaned into him.

If only those veins could be as ugly as she thought; perhaps they would be to any man-not-vampire. Stroking the silkiness of her newly regenerated skin, much like the map of rivers and valleys that rushed past them out the plane window, Spike realized how much he ached to explore this landscape of hers.

For all of it and for more he wouldn't think on, he let himself be kissed. A glorious thing, full flush with her victory over his reluctance, she pulled him into what they both wanted. She swirled her tongue against his in pure pleasure as her gentle insistence met with his surrender. _I could lose myself in this girl_ , he thought and basked in the feeling for one sweet moment.

She took his fingers away from her stomach and eased them under the waistband of the jeans – his jeans that she wore – past the curls of her mound, parting her legs to where she dripped wet for him, and thrust three fingers deep inside. Both of them gasped at the sensation and she rocked her pelvis desperately against his hand.

"There's all kinds of friends," she moaned against his mouth. "I want you to be this for me. So do you, I can tell."

That's how he found himself on top of her, pulling his pants off of her, sprawling her across the aisle. Taking her first with his fingers and bringing her off with a wail, then with the whole rigid length of him, her nails imbedded in his hips and crying out as she wound her limbs around him. When he came, his teeth clamped down onto his tongue, filling his mouth with blood that he swallowed in grateful relief. She scurried out from under him and he sat up quickly, pulled on his clothes and collapsed into one of the seats, smoothing his hair back and feeling his cock weep inside his pants. His tongue still throbbed from the bite, but the pain distracted him from feeling anything else. Returning dressed and somber from the bathroom, she sat next to him and fastened her seat belt. A few quiet minutes passed. She rested her head on his shoulder and slept for the remainder of the flight.

 


	8. Ordinary Time

"They'll be waiting for us," Spike woke her gently as they touched down back at the Los Angeles airport. "The Black Guard doesn't go home empty handed."

"You just love sharing good news, dontcha?" she sighed, not moving her head from his chest. "They'll take me first. I'm the one they want."

"Don't go down without a fight, yeah? Take out a couple for me?"

"You betcha I will."

"That's my girl."

"Spike?"

"Yes, sweet?"

"He would've done it, wouldn't he?"

"Don't know," Spike said. A brief vision flashed in his mind, miles of dead bodies stretching across the freeways of Los Angeles and the plains of Texas, cutting a swath of death across the ocean to the opening of the Deeper Well, where Fred would have recovered to see what love had forged in her wake. "Can't say."

She leaned over him and peeked out the airplane window. From the look on her face, he knew what waited for them. She pecked him on the cheek and hurried away.

 

* * *

 

In the faint light of pre-dawn, he watched her march down the metal steps to her captors, kicking one dead center under his ribcage and cross-punching the other across the face and snapping his nose. More guards filed out of the black vans with no weapons, but with restraints, one grabbing the back of her neck while another snapped a cuff around her ankle. With a strangled cry, she reared her free leg backwards and managed to catch the guard behind her with the heel of her boot, sending him skidding across the cement. They descended on her then, pinning her to the ground and binding her hands and feet together, and carrying her struggling to the back of one of the vans.

"Show's over, Mr. Spike," he heard the pilot say from behind him and felt a steel cuff clamp down on his wrist. "Now I know you don't want to risk daylight to give us any trouble." The co-pilot pressed a menacing hand on Spike's shoulder.

"Well, well, well. Ain't this a surprise. Why'd your lot bother letting us go over there in the first place?"

"We hoped you'd keep her over there. That would have been fine by us," the pilot said. "But you brought her back."

Spike heard the muffled groans from the injured guards and allowed the men to lead him out of the plane. "Yeah. Looks like I did."

 

* * *

 

Wesley spent a fitful night of troubled dreams, tossing and turning on his office's stiff couch where he had spent so many nights already with agonizing thoughts of Fred. Hehadn't been this distraught since the night she died, and his mind clicked through that dream he'd had, with Fred so close he could've kissed her, and why didn't he kiss her? Why would a man choose not to kiss his true love in his own dreams? She looked at him with such calm, such confidence, as if she'd already seen this day, her mouth barely moving the words, _"This is only the first layer. Don't you wanna see how deep I go?"_

"That's what I did," he called out, sitting up. "I found you. Didn't I find you?"

A different voice answered him. "You know, I can still pencil you in for Easter dinner. Nothing like a little pork roast to wash down the atonement for your sins."

"Get out of here," Wesley told the figure of Lilah, who sat on the armrest of the sofa.

"They're bringing her in. Just thought you'd want to know."

He sat up and combed his fingers through his hair, flattening down the cowlicks that had sprung up.

"Easy there, Romeo," Lilah laughed. "You know she really loved you for your mind."

"You did this!" he yelled at her. "You came here when I was vulnerable, exhausted, insane with grief. You led me to this!"

"Well, you're half right, honey. I'm in your head. So let's say we both did it and split the difference? I'm dead, Wes. You couldn't save me and before you get any more bright ideas, you can't bring me back, either." She moved next to him and put her hand on his knee. "But then I always was your second choice, wasn't I?"

When he looked up again, Angel stood in the doorway of his office.

"She's here."

Wesley turned his head quickly, expecting to see Lilah, but the space next to him was empty.

"You mean Fred. Yes, of course. I'll be right there."

"You can take off those cuffs," he heard Angel say in the hallway. "She's not dangerous."

"If it's all the same to you sir, we've got three guards down who will tell you different."

"I said take them off!"

Wesley came out in time to see the guards take the restraints off of Fred's hands from behind her back. When he saw the wrinkled black t-shirt and matching black jeans she wore, he had no illusions whose clothes she'd borrowed. Spike's outfit made her look even more like a stranger. The lead guard turned to Wesley and nodded.

"Fugitive apprehended, sir, as requested."

Fred turned around slowly, regarding Wesley with a cool and detached expression. She walked stiffly over to him.

"You betrayed us," said Illyria's voice.

"Where is she?" he hissed.

"Here. We both are here. Because of you."

"I want to see Fred!"

"You have always seen Fred. That is your greatest weakness. This is the result." Illyria walked away from them and down the hallway.

"My God," Wesley breathed. "However will she stand it? Being here, living that way?"

"She won't," Angel said behind him. "Fred's leaving for Texas in the morning. She said that she'll meet you before she goes."

Wesley watched as Illyria bent her head to the potted ferns next to the wall. "Meet me where?"

"The lab."

 

* * *

 

Wesley turned on Fred's favorite country radio station in hopes of lightening the mood. Oldies weekend was in full swing and after enduring "I Fall to Pieces" he knew that neither of them could stomach "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue." Fred smiled weakly at the first chorus and Wes shut off the music.

"You know I never intended…" he began. "When I sent out the Black Guard, I wanted them to find you, to return you safely, before you got hurt."

"I already got hurt, " she smiled clumsily. "Let's just get this over with."

Wesley nodded, his face masking into matter-of-fact concern, first flashing a penlight into her eyes. "Any change in vision?"

"Only the usual myopia. Hey, I remembered that word!" she grinned proudly.

He returned a small smile. "Hearing?"

"Clear as a bell."

"Your lymph glands are swollen. Your voice is hoarse. Any pain there?"

"Feels like I'm getting over a cold is all."

"What about sensate reactions?"

"Some delayed response in motor reflex. You can check it if you want to."

Lifting a small rubber mallet, he tested first her knees, then held up her arm into the light. Thin crusts of blue lined the creases of her skin, as though she'd been dipped in paint and scrubbed. He pressed her palm for the spasm of muscles that would curl her fingers over his thumb, over and over again, past testing the reflex until they approximated holding hands. Fred looked down at the contact and pulled her hand away, nervously rubbing it on the pant leg of her jeans.

"Well, I must say that I concur completely with the diagnosis. I'm relieved that he brought you to a real professional. A professional what exactly, I'm not sure," he put down the folder and rubbed his eyes behind his glasses.

"Wesley – "

"I appreciate you allowing me to do this. I wanted to see for myself, that you're all right. There's just one more thing." With tears in his eyes, he finally looked into her face. "Please don't leave me."

She avoided his eyes. "This isn't about me leaving anybody," she mumbled.

"When I think of the pain that I've caused you, I…" he shook his head. "I don't have the words to ask for your forgiveness."

She cocked her head at him. "Do you even know what you'd be asking it for?"

He looked at her in confusion. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean."

"When I was stuck, having my body out of my control while still being in it, I guess you did see that, in your own way. I—I wasn't at peace. But I could have been." Her eyes searched his face. "You could have done that, too, instead of what you did. Please tell me I'm wrong."

Wesley saw the yearning in her expression, felt it, and met it with his own. "You're not."

She nodded. "What you did? This wasn't for me. This wasn't anything about me. This was about you, what you needed. Trouble is, I'm the one who's going to have to live with it."

"So will I," he said firmly, taking her hand again. "Let me live it with you."

"Wesley. I can't. I can't try to convince you I'm that girl you built up in your head, 'cause I'm sure not her now." She released his hand and rubbed her fingers along the blue tint of her knuckles. "I'm not really sure who I am but I'm going to figure it out."

He lifted his head, blinking back tears. "Alone?"

"No," she said quietly. "I won't be alone. You don't want this, Wesley. Believe me."

"I love you so much," he choked. "My God, I feel like I'm losing you all over again."

"This cannot be helped." In an instant, he saw her eyes flash briefly to a brutal shade of blue. Wesley jerked away from her in shock.

"See?" she whispered sadly and the brown of her pupils returned with her own tears.

He'd lost her. Worse yet, he'd truly let her go. "Oh, my Fred. Can you ever forgive me?"

She shrugged. "I'm workin' on it."

 

* * *

 

Spike leaned against the side of Angel's beaten Plymouth and flicked ashes against the bumper. The big poof's orders, no company vehicles for this journey. Once he saw Fred enter the garage, he stubbed the cigarette under his toe and hurried to open the passenger door for her. Once he caught a look at her expression, he shut the door again.

"Let me guess. Here's the part where you tell me the field trip's off."

"No. Go on and open it. I need to leave more than ever now."

"Bad?"

"Over," she said simply. "Here are some supplies for the road. Not so many stops that way." She handed him a portable cooler.

"I like a woman who comes prepared. Never did find out what sort of snacks you fancy." He peeked open the lid of the box. "But then I see this is for me, unless your diet's changed dramatically."

"I thought I heard you say once that you liked the lab's supply best," she said shyly and he saw the remnants of the girl he remembered from so many months ago, and from the one who kissed him senseless in midair.

"I did say that," he said. "Thank you, pet." He touched her arm. "Tell me you've already eaten your weight in hot fudge sundaes, would you?"

She shook her head. "Must be another perk of being bound to an old one, I guess. Food's pretty much off my radar right now. I'll be protein shaking it for a while."

They got into their respective sides of the car, Spike behind the wheel. "Got the map?"

"Sure," she smiled and pointed to her head. "Still here. I guess she left me something after all, the last little scrap of a trip long, long ago to a land far, far away. Like a fairy tale."

"Right. Guess you stopped believing in those," he ventured, reaching for the gearshift. Her hand caught his.

"Until somebody sort of rewrote one for me." She looked down. "Nobody thinks this is a good idea, do they?"

"Never put great stock in the word of the crowd," he replied airily. He paused. "No, love, they don't. Maybe it isn't. However will your lot survive an old Big Bad like me?"

"You don't have a thing to worry about, honey," she whispered, pulling him in for a hug. "Everything's bigger in Texas."


End file.
